Database
by Smurfinablender
Summary: Beth Childs searches the Interpol database for information on potential clones. When she comes across Sarah Manning and her biological daughter, Beth is faced with a tough decision.


**Database.**

The phone rang at the desk to her right. Beth turned, startled. No one was there. She looked over her shoulder at the mostly-empty office before returning to her computer.

Beth had to run information through the system in small times of solitude to avoid the possibility of having someone look over her shoulder and see her own face, albeit with slight alterations, on the screen.

She put her head in her hands, running her fingers through her straightened hair.

A ding sounded on the computer.

Tapping the mouse, she pulled up the hidden search page. She had been searching the Interpol database for clones. Well, not clones, or rather she would never say they were clones. She had never figured out what to call them instead. She slid open her drawer and pulled out an orange, translucent bottle. Pushing on the lid, she freed the child safety and slipped out three pills. She tossed them into the back of her throat, swallowing in one continuous gulp of muscle-memory.

"Tony Sawiki" she whispered. She inspected her, no his, picture.

_Seven_, she thought.

The search had been a long grueling process. Alison had been the first. She ran into her in a supermarket while on a case. After the shock wore off, they seemed to get one another, understand that something was going on. When they both found out they were orphans, they began a search to find their birth mother. But yet, what they found had turned out to be more terrifying than they expected. That's when Beth first ran her fingerprint. A series of names popped up. Cosima Niehaus was one of the first. Alison had agreed someone with a Science expertise would be important. They brought her in. With a little help from an unsuspecting Raj, Beth was able to wipe Cosima's possession charge from her record to make sure she didn't pop-up on any future searches.

The phone next to her rang again startling her. She slammed her fist on the table, perspiration on her forehead. She rubbed her temples.

_Tony Sawiki_, she thought to her self. He seemed to have street smarts, something that though she had training, they could use. A couple clones from Europe had shown up on the database and she was in contact with two of them. The third, Danielle, turned up murdered. Katja and Aryanna had both been in contact with her. Katja seemed to have a level head. Aryanna, the Italian one, was certain that Danielle's death was a serial killing and not just a random back-ally murder. Beth laughed at the idea.

She placed a call.

* * *

After the call, she hung up the phone. She couldn't get a hold of Tony but talked to a friend of his. She was able to get him to relay a message to Tony. She hoped to receive a call soon. Hopefully, he didn't search her up online. She had been able to convince Hardcastle to remove her photo from the Precinct webpage with some sob story about an abusive father that she wished held less truth than it did. She just hoped there wasn't something she missed. Finding out you have a doppelgänger is not something best learned on the internet.

A door down the hall slammed shut. Beth clinched her fists, and popped her neck. She absently rubbed her fingers over the scar on the back of her neck. The fluorescent light above her desk flickered. Maintenance would have to fix it, it had been bothering her for days. Nothing in the station seemed to work at one-hundred-percent.

The phone rang.

Not the one to her side, but her phone. She breathed a sigh of relief and picked it up.

"Officer Beth Childs" she responded.

"Hey Beth." a familiar voice said. A warm feeling fluttered into her chest, she slid down in her chair, turning her voice to a whisper.

"Hey you, what are you doing calling me on this phone?"

"I get nervous having my number pop-up on your cell phone."

"We need to get that fixed," Beth agreed, "I can look into secret phones or something, you're right though, communicating is starting to get sketchy and my partner is already noticing things are weird."

"Donnie thinks I'm planning a surprise for his birthday, so now I have to ACTUALLY plan a surprise to keep up appearances. My neighbor is helping me, she's always up for a party. Of course, I'd want to as-well if I had her husband, I hear he-"

"Alison." Beth cut her off.

"You're right, I shouldn't gossip. How are you?" Alison said.

Someone walked by Beth's desk. She shot up in her chair and acted professional. "Yeah, good, good. What was the color of the car?"

Alison giggled, "Oh, not this again. I think the color was a nice mauve, with a pearl finish, and cute little eye lashes over the headlights, big powerful Detective Childs."

Beth bit her finger to hold in a laugh. "Hush" she whispered. "You are the worst! I'm trying to not call attention to myself and here you have me laughing. A detective doesn't do that when on a business-call Ali!"

"Oh she doesn't?" Alison joked, "Tell me, in detail, what does a big-shot detective do when on a business call?"

Beth's heart jumped a bit. Nervous, she looked around. "You're killing me Hendrix." She said.

"Ok, ok, get back to work hotshot, and then come save me."

"Wish I could, I'll try and come out Thursday when I have a day off. Hopefully I'll have some more contacts for us." Beth paused rubbing her temples.

"See you later Detective." Alison said.

"Yeah, Yeah, bye 'burbs." Beth hung up the receiver with a slight smile. She felt better, relieved. She couldn't tell if it was the pills kicking in or the conversation relaxing her.

Inhaling, she picked up her jacket and began to slide it on. It didn't seem like she'd hear anything back from Tony tonight, and she hadn't heard anything on her other contacts.

The computer dinged.

Beth turned around and slid back into her chair. Glancing around to make sure no one was around, she opened up her search. She had a hit on Sarah Manning. Sarah was one of the first to pop up when she ran her fingerprint through Interpol. This was even before Cosima, but Beth hadn't been able to get any leads on Sarah. She got a connection, a Mrs. Sadler. She picked up the phone and dialed.

"Hello?" an Irish accent came through.

Beth sat up in her chair, "Hello, I'm an officer for the Toronto Police Department looking into-"

The woman cut Beth off with a large sigh, "What has Sarah done this time?"

Beth collected her self, "Nothing, I was just wondering if I could talk to her, ask some questions."

"Well Officer," The lady continued, "We'd both like to talk to her, but she dropped her daughter off and hasn't been seen for two months."

Without thinking Beth said too much. "That doesn't seem like something the Ministry of Children would be happy about. Have you heard anything from the adoption agency?"

"What are you talking about?" Mrs. Sadler said. "You obviously haven't done your homework officer, Sarah is the adopted one, her daughter, Kira is biologically hers."

Beth was silent. She flipped through papers on her desk, trying to figure out where it was, where she put it. This wasn't right. From what she had seen, it didn't look like any of them had been able to conceive, been able to have children. Her mind started racing, police training running through multiple possibilities.

"Officer?" the voice came through the other end, snapping Beth back to the present.

"I'm sorry, thank you for you time." She hung up before hearing a response.

The air conditioner kicked on with a loud hum.

Elbows on the desk, Beth began rubbing her temples.

"Shit." She whispered to herself.

"Hard day?" Came a voice behind her, forcing her to jump in the air.

Beth quickly minimized the window on her screen. She turned around to see Raj, dumb flirtatious smile on his face, boyish charm.

"Oh it's just you." She said with a sigh.

A flash of offense shot across Raj's face before he regained his composure, "You working late again? You know if Art goes home for the night, I'm pretty sure you can too."

"I know, I know," Beth replied, "I just, you know, wanna.." She began dismissively flicking her hand behind her. "I just want to get these files done, I don't want to always be the rookie around here."

"You're fine Beth," Raj said, leaning over her desk, a little too close. "You're doing great." He reached out his hand to rub her shoulder.

She pulled back. Raj withdrew his hand, embarrassed. "Hey," She said a little harsher than she intended. "Uh, I got shit to do, and, well, thanks for checking up on me but..." she trailed off pointing to the computer.

"No problem," Raj said receiving the hint, "You need anything, I'm your man"

_You are most definitely not my man_, Beth thought to her self as Raj walked away. She turned back to her computer.

Opening the search she began running through the contacts she had made, the people she had talked to. She tucked her hair behind her ear. It didn't make sense. There hadn't been enough people to know for sure if the clones couldn't have children naturally. If they couldn't, if this was something rare, then Sarah Manning being impossible to find could be a good thing.

Beth looked around absently. She took a deep breath.

No one can know, she thought to herself. It isn't safe. Sarah Manning couldn't know about what ever it was they were. Beth couldn't be responsible for bringing her child into this, especially with the potential of a murderer on the loose. She would even have to keep this a secret from Alison. She hated keeping secrets from Alison. But Beth knew, even if Alison kept this a secret, the thought that one of the clones had a kid would eat away at her. Beth ran her fingers across the keyboard trying to think of what to do.

I can't just delete her file, she thought, I need to leave everything untouched. Everything.

Beth opened up the search and deleted the history. Sarah Manning would not exist. As far as Beth was concerned, she had never looked her up. Hopefully, she would stay that way.

"Wherever you're hiding," Beth whispered aloud, "Stay hidden."

Beth stood up, straightening her coat. She slid the chair under the desk and turned to walk away. After taking another step she turned around and opened the drawer, sliding out two more pills that she swallowed effortlessly. She slid the drawer back into place and shook off the feeling.

The phone to her right rang.

Beth walked over and unhooked the phone-jack from the wall. She only had two more days until she could drive down to Scarborough and get away from this place for a while. She smiled at that and walked through the station door, out into the cool air.


End file.
